rainbowtatt

Another week, another round of Noice-ities. Already!

This week has been full of lots of noice-ities (cupcake decorating class, happy clients, crocheting), and not so noice-ities (car issues, funerals and issues with that still-alcoholic mother).

But the best part of this week has been the fact that we’ve pulled our finger out and set a wedding date! And a ceremony location! And a reception venue!

I know, it’s quite ground-breaking.

Everything has been pretty much set around the reception venue, which is our favourite pizza restaurant that conveniently has a function room:

And thankfully there’s a huge park nearby, complete with Jacaranda tree. Dan’s agreed to the Jaca and I love that we’ll be under the tree of my hometown, the jacaranda city. Jacaranda trees don’t usually bloom until late October, but we’re hoping they’ll make an early appearance in light of global warming and whatnot. And there’s my selfish anti-environment wish for the day.

I’ve created a visual approximation of how the tree might look in October:

There has been MUCH! EXCITEMENT! that we’ve set a date. I was hoping to hide under a rock until the week before, but I don’t think I’m going to get away with that. At all.

But we’re happy with what we’ve chosen so far, and the venue means we can invite family, friends and current/former work mates to join in the fun. C’mon, it’s a pizza party, what’s not to look forward to?

October ninth, twenty ten. Cause that’s how bride blogs say I should write the date ;)

Both Leigh and Liz can vouch that it’s rare for me to keep my mouth shut, but sit me in front of Yogi Johnstone from Sweet Dreams Cakes and the silence is deafening (to me, anyway).

Yogi taught herself to decorate cakes while her kids were growing up. She got so good at it that she was asked to decorate cakes for friends and for friends of friends. She now runs her own business and is damn good at what she does.

Colour me jealous!

Yogi doesn’t like buttercream icing, it can be the only reason for a skinny cake decorator ;)

I haven’t read Notebook: Magazine in a long time because I felt I was younger than their target market. But then they go and start The Craft Room and I may well go out now and buy a subscription. For $75 we got to spend three hours in a small class of five eager pupils and play with FONDAHNT. I think I’ve been pronouncing it wrong all these years.

Even to sit and listen to Yogi and go through seemingly simple things like how to get inspiration from magazines, birthday cards, wrapping paper, you name it. And how coloured fondant is much softer than white fondant. And why she prefers foil wrappers (the batter doesn’t show once they’re cooked). They’re the sort of things that food blogs/web sites don’t always get across in their posts. Or maybe I’m just not very good at remembering what I read online.

Since class on Monday night, I’ve already gone out and spent more money on supplies. And I have visions for cupcakes I’m going to make for a Cancer Council fundraiser I’m participating in next week.

I warned the girls that going to the class was going to be dangerous – and I was right! Now I’ve got cupcakes on the brain even more than usual. Om nom nom.

Leigh scored a photo of me and Liz with Yogi and some of her demo models:

Do you think I should try to make and decorate my own cupcakes for the wedding???

Actually, it was Steve Clisby, the man with a voice like melted butter.

He was a guest vocalist at that Haiti fundraiser I went to at The Basement a few weeks ago.

And an OH HAI at keyboardist Darryl Beaton (on the far left), who delivered a major flashback to my toe-tapping heydeys of Riva and Umbrella Red and the Riverside Brasserie. Zomg I’m so ollllllllllld.

This week’s Noice-ities theme is, well, no theme at all. Inspired by this week’s release of Iron Man 2, join me in a perve-fest of Robert Downey Jnr proportions. Although, I think I’d rather Tony Stark over RDJ. Mr Downey himself prob has a few too many “issues”.

The pic on the left was on the cover of yesterday’s Metro in the SMH. I copied it and hung it up around the office. Major photochopping, but excuse me while I swoon:

Dan’s in no rush to take me to see Iron Man 2. I can’t imagine why – surely the movie will be a masterpiece of Oscar-winning quality??

Come on over to That’s Noice to join in this week’s Noice-ities.

And so here is week 2 of Noice-ities (a.k.a nice titties) on That’s Noice where we’re sharing our favourite winter recipes.

Now I could go on about the noice things we have in winter – soup, curries, potato/tuna bakes… but, technically Dan makes those, not me.

My favourite winter recipe, though, hands-down, is corned beef. You know, that “poverty food”. Not that I knew it was a meat popular with families strapped for cash, but it was our special treat when I was growing up (apart from having picnic dinners on the loungeroom floor every Thursday night).

I hadn’t made corned beef myself until last year when it was featured in Donna Hay magazine… and I have to confess, I cried when I sat down to eat it. The only other time I’ve done that is for pavlova, so obviously corned beef is pretty damn spesh.

Donna Hay’s Corned Beef (serves 6)

• 1.5kg corned silverside or brisket
• 3 bay leaves
• 12 peppercorns
• 6 cloves
• ⅓ cup (80ml) malt vinegar
• ½ cup (90g) brown sugar
• 6 pickling onions
• 1 bunch baby carrots, trimmed and peeled

Place the beef in a large, heavy-based deep saucepan. Add the bay leaves, peppercorns, cloves, vinegar, sugar, onions and enough water to cover. Place over high heat and bring to the boil.

Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for 1 hour 30 minutes or when the beef is firm to the touch. Add the carrots in the last 5 minutes of cooking. Use a slotted spoon to occasionally skim the foam from the surface.

Corned beef isn’t really corned beef unless it’s teamed up with a nice white (bechamel) sauce, something like this one from Taste.

Come over to That’s Noice and join us for Noice-ities!

Sometimes the word “blog” sounds really, really stupid in my head. Like I’m saying “poop” or “pfaff”.

Whoops, I blogged!

Don’t mind me, I’m just blogging around.

Anyway, Talia chose this week’s theme for My Place & Yours: “Where do you blog?”.

I do most of my blogging here:

I really should’ve tidied up my desk before I took the pic! Items of note on my desk are: flea spray, day-old-barely-consumed-Coke Zero, empty choc mousse tub, a bag of red lentils (for a future blog post) and most of my cameras: iPhone, Canon Ixus 80 IS and Dan’s Nikon D80.

The other place where I do a large chunk of blogging is with my laptop on the couch:

Yes, we use pillows as cushions on our couch. Guess who loves napping on her couch? ;) 70’s-green throw on the couch to protect the colour for as long as possible. This is the preferred location when I want to watch tele :)

So, where do YOU blog? Join in!

My little black Mazda that could (a.k.a. Talyn) has been through a fair amount in the five years since I drove him out of the showroom.

Whenever I drive out to the farm, it comes back looking something like this:

Although, this time it was worse than usual because of the locust plagues infecting NSW.

Last year was the first time it went into the chop shop for repairs.

I’m renowned for the odd scratch here and there, but nothing like this:

Some random jerk has left a rather large impression on my arse!

Said jerk didn’t leave their details, so I’m stuffed :(

But, considering we rely on street parking in the inner-west, I don’t think I’ll bother fixing it until I’m ready to trade it in.

My poor Talyn!

I was only meant to go up to Le Bake to buy some of their nommy sourdough. But also came home with these:

And, for store-bought cupcakes, they’re pretty good! I’d kill to find out how they get the cupcake to round so nicely.

Turned out I wasn’t the only one in our house who liked them:

(click the pic for bigger)

I was actually eating this one when Elvis decided he wanted in. It’s no wonder that one of his (many) nicknames is CUPCAKE. He’ll take them plain, straight out of the oven, with buttercream icing or from a bakery.

Noice-ities is a new gamey thingy we’re playing over at That’s Noice – Leigh and I launched it late last night… and it’s taken me until this afternoon to finish my own post. I’m nothing if not efficient ;)

Leigh has already admitted that the name of the game was my idea and that it looks like we’re saying nice tits. Oh dear. And now that the name is on our logo, it makes our logo look like a large, bright pink nipple. NOICE!

Now that’s all I see when I’m working on That’s Noice, hehe.

ANYWAY! It’s our version of games like My Place & Yours that I’ve been playing, and we’re starting by asking

If skill/talent was no object, what do you want to make?

I’m a simple girl with simple goals at this stage – my big big thing would be to make my own dress that I could wear when we get hitched… but that’s a tad unrealistic, even for me!

The most I’ve made on my new sewing machine is a cover for my toaster:

which isn’t exactly advanced, but I’m chuffed to have finished it (mostly) successfully. My first draft turned out okay, but this time I actually ironed the seams and whatnot (I think the iron is still in shock from actually being used!). And now I find I’m eating toast more often, just so I can use the cover. Sad, no?

Next, I want to make covers for Dan’s Xbox and PS3s (yes, we have multiple PS3s. Save me). Gaming consoles aren’t as square as toasters, so it’s going to be… um, interesting!

Why don’t you come along and join us for Noice-ities – you don’t even need to have a blog to take part!

I love my place, even though it’s got floorboards on the ceiling:

Can you tell I’m on holiday? There’s stuff everywhere and I haven’t even finished unpacking from my weekend away. Or even the giant gold box that the Magnum Gold?! package was delivered in last week.

But! I’ve done the washing up!

Usually there’s a cat on the dining table (until I yell that them to get down), or piles of shopping on the kitchen counter. Or at least a pile of shoes in the corner that we’ve kicked off when we get home from work.

The theme for this week’s My Place and Yours over at Hello Owl is “What do you see when you walk through your front door?”. You should join in, it’s fun to sticky beak at everyone’s lives ;)

The panorama pic was taken with about 10 pics on my iPhone and stitched together automatically with the “AutoStitch” app on the phone itself. It’s a bit blurry in places, but I suspect that it’s largely because the light isn’t that great in our place…